AV-Test: Trend Micro Maintains Top Spot in Endpoint Protection

The pressures most IT security managers are under today don’t give them much time to do detailed due diligence on their endpoint protection vendors. That’s why independent testers have become so important. And with increasing numbers of vendors and products crowding the endpoint security marketplace – some claiming their technology is more ‘advanced’ or ‘next generation’ than that of industry leaders like Trend Micro – it’s never been more important to look carefully at the results of these tests.

That’s why we’re delighted once again to have come out on top for several metrics according to the most recent test for the best business endpoint protection product, from the highly respected, independent testing organization AV-Test.

Cybercrime: low investment, high return

CISOs may be under pressure but they certainly can’t afford to choose the wrong endpoint security product given the current threat landscape. Cybercrime is a multi-billion dollar industry, where the means to launch even advanced malware campaigns have become democratized amongst those who frequent underground darknet markets. For little investment and a potentially high return, hackers can even launch targeted attacks designed to bypass traditional security defenses. And new malware types like ransomware are being created all the time to further endanger business data.

IT security teams have to defend against this with static budgets and ever-stretched resources. And that’s not to mention the fact that most organizations today run a complex mix of old and new – physical, virtual, cloud and hybrid environments. The growing volume of mobile, cloud and virtual endpoints only serves to increase the potential attack surface further.

To deal with these kinds of threats you need the efficiency and effectiveness of both proven and next generation endpoint technologies that only Trend Micro Smart Protection Suite provides. Trend Micro’s proven and next-gen endpoint capabilities include: behavioral analysis, vulnerability shielding, sandboxing, application control, and high speed signature-based antivirus. Behavioral analysis digs deeper with specific protection capabilities around ransomware, command and control traffic, file prevalence & maturity, memory inspection, malicious code injection, and browser exploits. What’s more, these capabilities are manageable from a single console, across physical, cloud and hybrid environments. And flexible deployment options support your ever-changing mix of on-premise and cloud security.

Best of the best

But don’t take our word for it. AV-Test’s latest (December 2015) appraisal of the best endpoint protection software for Windows business users put Trend Micro right at the top of the pile.

Trend Micro scored 100% for protection against both zero day attacks and “widespread and prevalent” malware. This compares favorably with Cylance – one of those relatively new entrants to the market describing itself as a “next generation” endpoint protection provider. It scored just 98.3% for zero-day attack detection. So, when you consider the repercussions of letting even one piece of data-stealing malware through, percentage decimal points count a great deal in these tests. Furthermore, when you compare this to Cylance’s “The Unbelievable Tour” where they control all parameters, you can really understand why AV-Test’s independent testing is required to decipher fact from fiction. When we say “control all parameters”, we really mean all: not only do they exclude Trend Micro’s Enterprise endpoint protection software when they test against us, they also pick the malware samples and won’t tell anyone what functions are enabled or disabled.

When it came to performance, Trend Micro also outscored Cylance. Measuring the average influence of the product on computer speed in daily usage, AV-Test put Trend Micro 800% faster than Cylance.

And there’s no better product out there than Trend Micro in terms of usability. AV-Test recorded zero false warnings, false detections of legitimate software etc., while the Cylance software recorded a massive 25 false detections of legitimate software as malware.

And if that didn’t have you convinced there’s longer term proof Trend Micro is number one for endpoint protection. AV-Test publishes their testing results every 2nd month and when you average all of the top vendor scores since 2014 through to December 2015, you’ll find:

Trend Micro has the top overall certification score vs. all other vendors (i.e. across all metrics including performance, usability & protection)

Trend Micro has the top performance score

Trend Micro is in the top two vendors for the protection score (both zero-day and widespread malware protection results)

So if you aren’t already using Trend Micro for endpoint protection, do take a look or upgrade so that you can take advantage of the many advanced and next generation threat protection techniques.